ST JAMES Turramurra have been volunteering as a church group for the charity Easy Care Gardening Inc (ECG) for over ten years. Together they have contributed over 2579 hours of service, weeding, raking, pruning and mulching, helping elders in their neighbourhood stay living at home independently and safely by having a well-maintained garden.
ECG is not for profit organisation that began over three decades ago as a way of helping the elderly and disabled manage their properties.
Today it operates in four local government areas in Sydney’s north, including Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire. It services around a thousand households and has a few hundred volunteers on its books. St James Church, Turramurra has long been involved, beginning as a youth project back in 2010 and developing into a broader way that any members of the congregation can serve their community.
Easy Care Gardening provide the infrastructure and insurance, as well as tools and training when necessary, and the church parishioners rotate to help out and form a working party of green thumbs.
Easy Care Gardening operate a service that teams volunteers with older people living at home that can no longer manage their gardens, and need assistance to help living at home independently, but cannot afford gardeners. Clients need to qualify through My Aged Care.
Angus Sturrock outlines his experience by explaining “I feel like our efforts are small but provide a really practical way of helping and connecting with people in our local community that are in need. We are so grateful for the excellent work that Easy Care Gardening does in caring for vulnerable members of our community, and have found the partnership to be really beneficial as we look to do the same.”
Typically each session is three hours long, and groups of about 10 people in a team turn up to work our own “backyard blitz”. No gardening skill is required, just enthusiasm to help and ECG provide everything else, including uniform and a team leader if that’s helpful.
Normally this session is divided by a morning or afternoon tea which the client provides as their way of saying thank you. The conversation together is a great way of getting to know both the garden owner and your teammates in a casual setting, and a great way of “checking in” with each other.
The pandemic has been difficult for everyone. Leanne Babic, ECG CEO remarked that “At Easy Care Gardening, we were deemed by the Commonwealth Government as an essential My Aged Care service. Although we had reduced volunteer workers during the lockdown, we continued to provide essential gardening services to our clients. Many clients, were especially isolated during this time, separated from family and friends. We do not just provide gardening services, we are a caring organisation who checks in on our client’s wellbeing.”
Easy Care Gardening organise everything, volunteers just need to show up ‘garden ready’!
To find out more, contact our Volunteer Manager, who can walk you through what’s involved onvolunteering@easycaregardening.org.au